The Park Road Association has announced the launch of its 2018 Small Business Owner Workshop Series, an initiative to assist local Park Road and West Hartford small businesses with their sales, marketing, growth, and succession planning.

With the help of experts from right here in our own backyard, the Park Road Association’s goal is to give its small business community access to best in class professionals who can help them attract more clients and grow their brands in the short term while planning for the future of their businesses in the long term.

“Park Road is comprised of an amazingly diverse group of hardworking business owners who are constantly looking for ways to expand and attract new clientele,” said John Paindiris, co-chairperson of the Park Road Association and owner of Effie’s Place Restaurant. “Running a business is very tough and most of us are juggling sales, marketing, finance, HR, and operations without the financial resources to outsource some of those jobs to other professionals.”

“We decided it was time to give our local small business collective the opportunity to access some of the other experts in our community to help them resolve a few of those pain points,” said Tracy Flater, co-chairperson of the Park Road Association and owner of Playhouse on Park. “We’re excited to bring this new program to the Park Road family and we look forward to hearing ideas from residents and other businesses to help us deliver a robust educational program to our corner of West Hartford.”

The first workshop of the series is called "Practical Planning To Help Your Business Soar in 2018" and it will take place on Tuesday, February 6th from 4pm-6pm at Zest 280, located at 280 Park Road, West Hartford. The guided workshop will be presented by Chelsea O'Donnell from local marketing consultancy Journey Communications and will give small business owners the opportunity to map out both the long-term objectives for their business and the short term tactics to help them achieve their goals.

The session will begin with participants creating a vision map which will include the core outcomes for their revenue projections, customers, internal operations, and staff. From that map, each attendee will choose a select number of priorities to focus on for the year ahead. Once everyone has their foundation built, participants will then learn to develop strategies to make the goals from their vision map a reality. Finally, attendees will create a kick-off quarterly action plan that they can begin applying to their business immediately. Participants will also learn key communications tactics to ensure that they have the support and enthusiasm of their management and staff.

Future workshops will take place bi-monthly and include topics such as marketing and social media strategy, financial and retirement planning, and business and asset protection. Tickets for "Practical Planning To Help YourBusiness Soar in 2018" are only $10 for Park Road businesses and $20 for other businesses and can be purchased on the Park Road Association website at http://www.parkroadct.com/upcoming-events.